Well it turns out that access to cheap global fashion comes with a cost - apart from losing our domestic textile industry and questionable working conditions in Third World factories. And that cost is that washing care labels have become so large that we either suffer in discomfort or get rid of them as soon as possible. Hand washing be damned!

I recently cut a care label out of a dress because it was actually getting in the way of walking. The label has seven layers - all 3cm wide and 6cm long. It has to be this big because the instructions to wash on a cool gentle cycle are written in English, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Slovakian, Turkish, English for the US market, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese, including several icons only used in Japan.

When asked why labels come in so many languages, a spokeswoman for H&M in Australia would only say: "As a global brand we service a global customer by providing different translations on our care labels."

A quick shop around Melbourne this week also found an adidas singlet with a 4cm-wide four-page label that would have to be cut out before it could be worn in public, and Zara clothing with long, skinny three-page tags that have dotted lines at one end encouraging the wearer to cut it out. But doesn't this defeat the point of sewing the washing instructions into the fabric for later reference?

One selling point for Australian brands is that they now have very small labels inside because they only have to follow Australian labelling rules. But while it might be designed and sold here, most Australian clothing is made overseas.

Our domestic textile industry started collapsing in the 1970s with the start of economic liberalisation, was hit again by the 1990s recession, and then again as manufacturing work was outsourced to China. Where once 123,400 people were employed in the 1980s, just 44,800 were employed in textile, leather, clothing and footwear industries in 2014, according to the Bureau of Statistics.

And for many years we were protected from these mega-labels because we were buying clothing made just for the Australian market. But with the recent arrival of global fashion chains like H&M, COS, Uniqlo, and Zara, we have been swept into globalisation phase two. (Somehow, despite operating in 18 different countries, Uniqlo has English-only labels here. Their local PR firm was unable to shed any light on this achievement).

"The simple explanation [for long labels] is that more general lines of clothing like t-shirts and bras and singlets are now made in very large factories and instead of having a whole lot of different labels for different countries, there is just one. That will allow the product to be exported without an intermediary," said Australian Research Council Future Fellow at Monash University, Dr Sally Weller.

"When things first went to China there were machinists sitting in Richmond [in Melbourne] sewing Australian labels in. But that doesn't happen anymore ... now labels are put in in the originating factory."

My dress with the annoying label was made in Turkey and can be sold in 20 different markets without the retailer having to change a thing. There are 24 member states in the European Union and nearly all require labelling in the local language. According to the US Department of Commerce, there are 19 different languages across the EU for clothing labels, and 34 worldwide.

Logistically it makes sense to just put all the languages on one label, rather than seamstresses hunting around for the Greek, Danish or Lithuanian label. But there has to be a compromise between buying cheap clothing from a global label and personal comfort. Or destroying clothing in the wash because you cut out the care instructions last season.

Industry specialist and former chief executive of the Council of Textile and Fashion Industries of Australia, Jo-Anne Kellock, said brands have to find the right balance.

"[Brands] come here and they come with international compliance and there are quite strict regulations in European markets around care and product safety, much more so than anywhere else," she says, adding nearly 30 new international brands have set up stores in Australia in the past three years.

"It is all about logistics and their supply chain and where they rationalise their costs and where they can achieve efficiencies. [Labels are] a compromise between compliance and what is comfortable for the customer."

She also added the marketing department may have just as much to do with the care label as the company lawyers who have to ensure labelling complies with all regulations.